Search query: "Author Name:"Justin Caffier""

HOME / stories / interview

Throughout history and across the globe, alcohol has enjoyed a special relationship with organized religion. Whether utilized for sacrament, celebratory festivals, or means of income (hats off to those Trappist monks), the world’s favorite inebriant has always found a way to stay in the...

HOME / stories / feature

Despite an archaic Attorney General who seems plucked from the script for Reefer Madness, America’s collective stance on recreational drug use appears to be softening. Young Americans, in particular, tend to view drug use as less of a concern than their Boomer parents. This unfazed...

HOME / stories / feature

When choosing the best adjective to describe Japan, “cute” is right up at the top of the list alongside “efficient” and “weird.” Cuteness is so baked into Japanese culture that they have a word specifically for their special brand of adorability that you’ve likely heard before:...

HOME / stories / feature

Though drugs carry the sordid and vulgar baggage of their production, transportation and sale with them from farm to table, one mustn’t ever use those unfortunate circumstances as an excuse for poor manners. Below, you’ll find a handy manners guide for purchasing, consuming and sharing...

HOME / stories / feature

Finding a partner one can share experiences with is one of life's great joys. Sometimes those experiences are of the drug variety, and sometimes those partnerships only last for the duration of said experience. Maybe the feelings are unrequited, maybe they're mutual, but you two never cross...

HOME / stories / feature

If you felt a greater urge than usual to rub one out this Memorial Day, it might due to the fact that May 28 is National Masturbation Day. This explosive finish to the crescendo of National Masturbation Month was initially devised by sex-positive adult toy store Good Vibrations as a method of...

HOME / stories / feature

Few more annoying archetypes exist than “wine o’ clock” middle-aged women who operate under the mistaken assumption that, by sticking to just rosé and cabs, their functioning alcoholism is cute (or worse, a substitute for a well-rounded personality). Occasionally these ladies congregate...

HOME / stories / feature

As I rafted down Sweden’s mighty Torne river, I took stock of the breathtaking natural beauty surrounding me and the countless novel experiences I’d accumulated over the past few days. The still sunlit night before, after a day of axe-throwing lessons, I’d dined on reindeer filet and...

HOME / stories / feature

Ambient music played, tears streaked my face, and I began to sink into the aquamarine ocean photo in front of me. Then the doctor returned to my room for one final check-in, temporarily breaking the spell, before wishing me “a great journey” and letting me slip back into the ether. I was...

HOME / stories / feature

Though illegal drugs carry with them the sordid and vulgar baggage of their production, transportation and sale from farm to table, one mustn’t ever use those unfortunate circumstances as an excuse for poor manners. Below, you’ll find a handy manners guide for purchasing, consuming and...

HOME / stories / feature

About a week before traveling to Japan, I’d all but given up on learning a bit of the language. Wishing to avoid embodying the dumb gaijin trope, I downloaded Duolingo and flashcard apps to my phone, practicing every day for almost three months. Using just these apps as my guide, I studied...

HOME / stories / feature

In an era where every facet of life seems touched and tainted by shittiness, be it in the form of evil governance, an exposed-as-toxic entertainment industry, or an economy that spells out a bleak future for everyone born after 1985, a silver lining is beginning to emerge. Americans finally...

HOME / stories / feature

With her breakout single “Get Me a Drink” netting countless plays, and a debut album just released, it only makes sense that Melbourne-based musician Annika Schmarsel—better known as Alice Ivy—is finally taking her simultaneously fresh and familiar sound on the road. Though you might...

HOME / stories / feature

In the information age, tall tales, barstool boasts and other outlandish stories are endangered species. With just a quick glance at the powerful computational rectangles in each of our pockets, the veracity of any claim—big or small—can be challenged and quashed in an instant. Were such...

HOME / stories / interview

Originating when some of its members met at a slam poetry open mic in a New Orleans lounge, the soul funk mega-group Tank and the Bangas has spent the better part of the past decade slowly building its audience. This slow boil finally landed the band a booking at the two-weekend signifier of...

HOME / stories / feature

With each passing day, as the world drifts further into a fascistic dystopia, the concept of self-care has never been more important. But with the average citizen working grueling hours for pay so meager that it barely covers rent and bills, decompressing with a day at the spa or a retail...

HOME / stories / interview

What makes a work of art “good” is subjective, but any artist will tell you that having one’s work harshly critiqued is better than having it ignored. In an era where our attention is being demanded at all times, some contemporary artists have found that the best route to earning such a...

HOME / stories / feature

With at-home and mobile gaming ascending to humdrum everyday life ubiquity, one might understandably assume the video arcade is dead as the dodo. While the quarter-eating cabinet rooms of yesteryear may indeed be gone, their swanky, card-swiping successors are actually doing quite well.

HOME / stories / feature

Illegal drugs carry with them the sordid and vulgar baggage of their production, transportation and sale from farm to table, but one mustn’t ever use those unfortunate circumstances as an excuse for poor manners.
Whether passing a joint around a party with friends, embarking on a...

HOME / stories / feature

Though illegal drugs carry the sordid and vulgar baggage of their production, transportation and sale with them from farm to table, one mustn’t ever use those unfortunate circumstances as an excuse for poor manners. Below, you’ll find a handy manners guide for purchasing, consuming and...

HOME / stories / feature

The social media pantheon's already filled to capacity with platforms optimized for every facet of our lives. This hasn't stopped a smattering of new hyper-niche platforms from popping up to offer members a focused user base and collect whatever crumbs of Adsense dollars might still be left on...

HOME / stories / feature

Japan loves to not have sex. A perfect storm of a career-prioritizing culture, rising unsteady employment and more traditional mores about breadwinners and dating has resulted in a third of Japanese 30-somethings having no sexual experience whatsoever. This abstinent generation has contributed...

HOME / stories / feature

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”
These lines from Corinthians, some of the most recognizable in the Bible, are surprisingly versatile, even for a non-believer such as myself. As a teen, I angrily wielded...

HOME / stories / feature

In case you weren’t aware, the planet’s in a bit of a bee crisis. In short, the little buggers have been dwindling in drastic numbers, and the scientific community isn’t quite sure where to specifically place the blame for this decline. With such an obtuse problem to tackle, finding a...

HOME / stories / interview

With a career span longer than that of most politicians, it should be of no surprise to anyone that Thievery Corporation is back at it with a new album, Treasures from the Temple, set to drop on April 20th. That 4/20 release date is no accident, however. The chill electronic DC-based duo of...

HOME / stories / feature

A long time ago, when many still viewed the internet as the thing that came on those CDs that arrived in the mail, flash-based games began to pop up on a few janky websites that challenged players to try and escape the virtual room they’d been dropped into. From these humble beginnings, the...

HOME / stories / feature

Beachgoers in the sleepy surf town of Santa Cruz, California will soon enjoy a pristine shoreline, courtesy of a religious group some of its more conservative residents might instinctively recoil at: Satanists. Granted caretaker rights of the Seabright State Beach by the coastal cleanup...

HOME / stories / feature

With a fusion of sounds that expertly marry strange bedfellows like bluegrass, EDM and hip-hop, Judah & the Lion has dominated the indie charts and made believers out of many a skeptic over its recent time in the limelight. Now, after the success of their 2016 album Folk Hop N Roll and...

HOME / stories / feature

In 2013, A$AP Rocky and Skrillex teamed up to bring the world "Wild for the Night," a dubstep banger that trapped the sound of the era in amber. The DGAF anthem perfectly encapsulated the "we're all fucked so why not party?" ethos of the times and has since become a staple of in any club or...

HOME / stories / feature

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) surprised drug-using and square communities alike recently when the agency released a lengthy glossary of slang terms for illicit drugs as part of an unclassified intelligence report published in May 2017. Though expected suspects like “molly,”...

HOME / stories / feature

Cannabis has been tacitly or fully legal for the entirety of my residency in the state of California. This has spoiled me, not just materially (with an abundance of cheap or free top-shelf goods available at all times), but also mentally. Even having fully checked all the privilege that comes...

HOME / stories / interview

Harlem-born rapper Ro Ransom is nothing less than forthcoming about who he is and what he’s about—he’s such an enigma that he’s earned the moniker “Mystery Boy.” Wearing his heart on his WWE-inspired latex sleeve, Ro has been turning heads over the past few...

HOME / stories / feature

Most citizens of Southeast Asia have come to accept Western backpackers as a permanent, cliché and occasionally obnoxious presence in their lives. Epitomized in Alex Garland's 1996 novel The Beach, these wanderlust-y youths hailing from the globe's wealthy nations have spent more than...

HOME / stories / feature

From the moment some proto-human first took a bite of the sun-fermented fruit beneath a tree and rode out the ensuing pleasant buzz, mankind hasn’t stopped looking for ways to get drunk, chasing that early kick with ever-increasing efficiency, creativity and intensity.
But not all...

HOME / stories / feature

One of the biggest surprises of adulthood, besides discovering the actual cost of living, is learning just how many normal, respectable, tax-paying adults are doing coke with semi-regularity. The ethics and legality of buying a cartel-sourced narcotic aside, it kind of makes sense. The stuff...